The Rowe Family Blog

I got an email yesterday from Creative Labs.  It was an email asking people to opt-in to their mailing list.  Why can’t more companies do this?

The email was a little bit odd.  They sent it both as plain text and as html.  The HTML version stated only that it was an attempt to get people to opt-in.  The text version actually said that they got my email address from a rebate submission.

I received an email this weekend from Rust Consulting stating the dates that the “codes” for discounts on Epson products will be active.  They completely botched my submission into this class action suit.  I wrote a letter back to them that was not mean or rude but very critical of their handling of the situation.  They incorrectly rejected both of the printers I owned that were eligible.  Now I think they are taunting me.  It’s just another sign of the poor handling of this settlement.  They sent information to me after they indicated that I couldn’t participate.

I’ve noticed that this company handles many large settlements.  Maybe they normally handle things well but that’s not been my experience.

I’m tired of companies spamming me.  Sure everyone hates the sleaze balls out there trying to get you to buy “pharmaceuticals” or the next hot stock but not everyone hates legit companies.  Why do companies think it’s OK to spam?  Every time I sign up for something with a company I always make sure to “check” that I do not want any mailings from the company.

Lands’ End and Rodale (the publishers of Runner’s World) are two companies that think it’s OK to plaster people with spam.

Lands’ End recently starting sending me specials via email.  I don’t care about their specials and I asked them not to send them to me but yet they continue to do so.

Rodale (Runner’s World) is worse by far.  In their case they have spammed me via email and snail mail.  They think for some reason that I might want to buy Men’s Health magazine.  I do not.  I will not.  Leave me alone!

I hate rebates.  They are extremely inconvenient.  They also force me to pay sales tax on a portion of sale that I’m not really paying for.  I understand why companies offer rebates all the time though — it makes them money.  People think that they are saving money, and they can, if they follow the 15 rules set forth in the rebate guidelines.  But sometimes even if you follow all of the rules they still reject your claim.  Or you never get a rejection notice or a check.

Recently I bought a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita as a gift.  A rebate was offered for a whopping 2 dollars.  The rebate didn’t influence my purchase decision but I decided to take advantage of the offer even though it was hardly worth my time.  After paying postage I’d only get about $1.60.

I followed their rules which were:

• send the rebate form
• send the original dated register receipt with product highlighted or circled
• send the original UPC code from the product

Sometime later I received a rejection letter that included all of the materials that I originally sent to the rebate address.  The rejection letter stated:

“All required purchases could not be identified on the register receipt”

This boggle my mind because the item is circled on the receipt (see below).  Maybe they didn’t understand that 750 ml is the same as 1 pint, 9.36 fl oz.  The bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade mike-arita now cost me $.39 more than the price I paid at the register.

If your company is considering a rebate program I urge to not offer a rebate.  If you must offer a rebate I urge you not to choose CMS Rebate Services as they obviously can’t handle the simplest of rebates.

Motley Fool is an OK resource for learning about investing as long as you get past their almost endless sales pitches about joining their investment newsletters. They lost a lot of credibility in my book recently. This week I got spam from an address that I gave out ONLY to Motley Fool. This was REAL spam. This is part of body of the spam: Read the rest of this entry »

I hate American Express.  They sent me an application for a Blue card with an offer for $50 for signing up.  All you had to do was sign up and use the card at least once in the first three months of owning the card.  I signed up and made a purchase and waited for the points to show on my account.  They never showed.

When I called to cancel they said the points would be credited in the next three weeks.  Three weeks came and went and the points never arrived.  I believe the customer service rep lied to me just to keep the account open.  I will be canceling the account and I will never sign up for anything American Express sends me ever again.

For quite some time I’ve bought almost all of my computer hardware via newegg.com.  They have a great reputation for customer service and they have very reasonable prices.  For the first time I had an experience with newegg that wasn’t perfect.

I ordered three items.  I received 3 emails notifying me that the orders were being processed.  I received another set of 3 emails telling me that my credit card had been charged.  Later in the week one of the items arrived.  For an unrelated reason I checked the “un billed activity” on my credit card.  I noticed a credit from newegg.  That didn’t make sense to me so I visited newegg.com.

I found that newegg had “voided” (canceled)  one of my order but they never notified me.  After emailing customer service they informed me that what I had ordered was out of stock and they do not keep orders on back order.  The item was in stock when I placed the order, at least according to their website, but I guess it wasn’t in stock at their warehouse.   For my trouble newegg offered me a partial credit for my recent purchases or for a future purchase.  I elected to have the credit immediately.

As I said this was less than perfect but it was still completely acceptable to me.  I will still buy from newegg.  I wish that newegg would notify customers when something happens to their order.  I also wish that they didn’t charge shipping for each item (that seems shady to me).  I also wish orders were shipped together.  I suspect that newegg operates this way to save money by having different items in different warehouses.  It’s annoying but not a deal breaker.

In case you didn’t know there is a class action lawsuit against Epson regarding their ink cartridges. I have two qualifying printers but I doubt I’ll see a penny out of the settlement. I have trouble believing that the company handling the settlement is intentionally denying me my right to the settlement so I am left to believe that they are incompetent.

I submited two claim forms. These forms MUST be submitted by mail as there is no web based mechanism. I recieved one rejection letter and one letter seeking clarification. Perhaps they are using terrible OCR because there are a LARGE number of errors. They spelled my name wrong on one of the letters.

For the printer they rejected they said that a CX400 doesn’t qualify. They’re right. There is no such thing. I own a CX4600 which DOES qualify. I referred back to the copy I kept of the claim form that I mailed. I clearly wrote CX4600. For the printer that they needed more information on they actually got all of the data correct off of the form (except for my name) but still “can’t verify” the printer.

I’m sending them a clarification and a letter in response to their rejection notice. I don’t expect to see a penny out of this. I think this company, Rust Consulting. INC out of Minneapolis Minnesota is incompetent. They could have saved a huge amount of money had they allowed web based submissions. It wouldn’t have been nearly as error prone either.

First see my review at tripadvisor.

When I checked out of this hotel I had to leave my email address because their computer systems were down.  They sent a receipt to that address.  They also chose to sign that address up for their Choice Hotels mailing list.  Luckily I was smart enough to use a throw-away address that is no longer valid.

Choice Hotels/Quality Inn is another company that feels that spamming is OK for them to do.

I got our annual bill from Waste Management a few weeks back. The bill was for about 300$. What bothered me about the bill is that they apply “fuel surcharges.” I’m sorry but I really don’t care about what does into the cost of their business. Time Warner doesn’t apply “electricity surcharges” to my bill. So I decided to call around and maybe switch to a new collection service. Most of the companies I called had been purchased by Waste Management. The only company I could find that wasn’t owned by Waste Management was Boone and Sons. Their service was a full 85$ less expensive than Waste Management. I called Waste Management to cancel. They offered me a deal that still wasn’t as good as Boone and Sons if I were to stay on. I said “no thank you.”

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